We had about fifteen miles to go along the road to a point where elephants or horses would be in waiting for us, sent by the rajah from his jungle palace. Then we should leave the buggies and the main road, to follow a track leading up to the rajah’s place, where he often went, to be out of the heat and dust of the city, in which every pair of feet was kicking up the dust all day long, till it was as if the lower part of the town was shrouded in a dense stratum of fog twelve or fourteen feet thick.
We had been riding for some time at a rapid rate before we began to note a change in the surroundings. First a tree would stand out in a pale grey ghostly way; then a clump of high cane-like grass would loom out like something solid, and then, on turning round, I could see a pale grey light in the sky, which rapidly turned to pale crimson, and then to deep ruddy gold, as up came the sun almost at once, the change from night to day being rapid there.
For some little time now we had been ascending; and getting into a part clear of trees, we were suddenly aware of a tent pitched in the shade of a mango tope, and close by, quietly picking up freshly cut green food, and tucking it into their mouths with their trunks, were half a dozen elephants, three of which bore handsome trappings and howdahs, while the others had only the ordinary pads.
A couple of handsomely dressed servants came forward to meet us as we dismounted, and we were ushered into the open-sided tent, where breakfast was waiting, spread on a soft Indian carpet, while the rajah’s men waited upon us with the greatest of attention.
But, as the doctor said, we had not come to eat, and very soon expressed our readiness to start, when the elephants were guided to the front of the tent, and we mounted, after giving orders to the drivers of the vehicles in which we had come, to be in waiting for us just at dusk. Then the huge animal on which I was mounted with the doctor moved slowly on apparently, but covering a good deal of ground in his shuffling stride.
A shout from Brace on the next elephant arrested us, though, and, on turning, we found that he was pointing back.
The scene was worth stopping to contemplate, for there, miles away behind us, lay Rajgunge, with its mosques and temples glittering in the morning sun, and the dust which often shrouded the place now visible only as a faint haze, while the sparkling river looked a very band of silver curving round it like the fold of some wondrous serpent undulating over the plain. The city lay in a hollow, from which the land sloped away on one side, while, on the other, hill and valley alternated, with the country rising higher and higher to where we stood, and then rose more and more into a wild of jungle and mountain, whose more distant eminences died into a soft blue mist.
“I never saw a more beautiful view,” said the doctor to me. “Grand place to send patients to. Sight of the country would do them more good than my physic. Make much of it, Vincent,” he said; “you may never see the city look so beautiful again.”
I looked at him so wonderingly that he laughed.
“Well, next time it may be dark or cloudy, or raining, or at a different time of year.”